


Fix

by scheherazade



Series: Past and Future [3]
Category: Tenimyu RPF
Genre: Gen, Implied Background Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 05:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherazade/pseuds/scheherazade
Summary: Five conversations Shoutarou never had.





	Fix

**Author's Note:**

> this is a shoutarou-centric epilogue to ["twenty-twenty"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11487153/chapters/25765059) and contains major spoilers for the entire fic. it also picks up right where that fic leaves off, so this won't make any sense if you haven't read that first.  
>  

Yutaka takes the seat beside him. "You look well."

Shoutarou snorts. Better than expected, is what Yutaka probably meant to say. But that's the thing: Yutaka is tactful in an unexpected way. Or, rather, you'd expect it if you knew what kind of person he is. Kobayashi Yutaka is, at heart, the kindest person Shoutarou knows. Maybe that's not saying a lot, given the people he does know. Maybe it just says that he should find some new friends. 

Maybe he's never really known how to make friends. He makes sure of things, and he makes do with a firm grasp on reality. And if that rubs people the wrong way sometimes, well—he gets along with enough of them, and they admire and praise him, and in some ways Shoutarou has never entirely grown out of being the kid that drank up that praise because that's what children do. Maybe if he'd had a normal life, finished up school and got a normal job and learned to go through the highs and lows on his own instead of always with a manager or coworkers stepping in as surrogate siblings, family—maybe he'd be a better person. 

"You're not a bad person," Yutaka says gently, because that's just what he does. It's not a skill Shoutarou's ever had. Even when he wants to help, he doesn't know how to be kind about it.

Maybe that's a good reason to change. Making a change seems to be the hot topic of the year. But would it really be better? He'd be unrecognizable to himself as he is now, that's all. And maybe that's the thing that speaks loudest to who he really is: the fact that, even given everything, Shoutarou can't imagine a scenario where he'd ever choose to be different. 

Sho used to laugh at that kind of thing, voice fond in a way that Shoutarou never imagined changing. _That's what we love about you,_ he'd say. _Not that you're an old man at heart—though, c'mon, lay off the whiskey a bit, huh?—but you've got yourself figured out already, and you're not even old enough to know what figuring yourself out is supposed to mean._

"I never wanted to be a good person," Shoutarou tells Yutaka. "But I don't do anything I don't mean, and I think that counts for something, doesn't it?"

"Of course it does." From anyone else, it might be meaningless patronizing. Not from Yutaka. Not when Yutaka looks at him and never comments on how mature he is for his years, because that got old around the same time Shoutarou stopped being impatient about getting older already. They don't always understand each other, but Yutaka does get this much. "But things count differently for different people, Shoutarou. It's not fair, but that's the thing about people: everyone gets to be wrong in their own way. Even you."

"Me? Wrong? Never."

It's flippant and pointless; Yutaka laughs anyway. "I'm not saying you have a monopoly on blame here, but blame's pretty much useless in the end, don't you think?"

"Even when it's completely earned?"

"Even so." Yutaka tilts his head a fraction. In the dim bar lighting, it's hard to read his expression. "Sho's going to have to forgive you eventually. And you, him. You're both too alike, and I know you don't like hearing that, but there's no need to punish yourself for his failings, you know?"

He doesn't know. Today, he doesn't know if anything he believed was ever worth the price of faith. He believed Sho—once, when Sho blamed Daisuke for breaking his heart, and once, when Sho promised, _of course I trust you_ —and look where that's gotten him. 

"You really do hold a grudge like nobody's business." There's no accusation in Yutaka's voice. "It says something about you as a friend. I don't know anybody half as loyal as you are, Shou-chan."

 _Don't call me that_ , Shoutarou doesn't say, because that's not something Yutaka has called him in years and years, and won't, now, because Yutaka isn't here.

Yutaka is probably at home, taking care of Daisuke and reassuring him that everything will be okay, because he's going to stay in Tokyo and neither Tokyo nor Yutaka nor Sho will ever betray him. Not this time. Not like Shoutarou.

They blame him, and Shoutarou can't even in good conscience deny their right to do so. But he'd had his reasons. He has ten years' worth of reasons, ten years of watching Sho stumble through the mess of his own poor judgement and the landmines Daisuke left in carelessness. Ten years of knowing that relationships are something you have to work for, something you have to _be there_ for, lessons that Sho taught him through bitterly learned example—and now it's all been unlearned.

 

* * *

 

"Well, _obviously_." Seiya is a judgemental bitch on his best day, and the condescension is practically dripping from his voice now. "What did you expect? I've only been saying since, oh I don't know— _forever_ —that Hirose is a terrible person. About time you realized."

Shoutarou rolls his eyes and lets Seiya pay for his own goddamn drink, just for that. "What happened to, ' _oh I'll definitely come see one of your shows, Dai-chan. So happy that you're back. What a brave and admirable person you are_ '?"

"One, I never said any of that. Two, shut the fuck up." Seiya knocks back a shot of tequila. Not that he needs the alcohol to let loose his inner mean girl, but Shoutarou would be lying if he said he didn't find it entertaining. "Three," Seiya says, "I was being polite. If I refused to engage with terrible people full stop, I wouldn't have a single contact left in this industry."

"You'd have buchou and KY-san," Shoutarou points out. "Not that you ever talk to either of them. Or any of us."

"Yeah, it's called moving on. You might want to try it sometime."

"Fuck you," Shoutarou says for form's sake.

Seiya rolls his eyes. "You wish."

And if he's casually wondered about it once or twice, well—nobody's ever going to know. Because this conversation never happened, though there's been more than enough opportunity for it to have. But Seiya isn't one to want to hang out, and Shoutarou hasn't had time to go chasing down people who aren't around. He has a job, and he has his friends. Or had. 

Even in his mind, the look Seiya gives him could wither flowers in full bloom. "Honestly, why _haven't_ you moved on? It's not like you don't have other friends. And let's be real, Jinnai isn't worth it. Most people dealing with his kind of bullshit on a daily basis are getting paid a reasonable hourly rate."

 _Hard work, isn't it, earning a living on your back_ , Shoutarou doesn't quip, and Seiya doesn't flip him off. 

_You know what I mean_ , would have been Seiya's retort, and Shoutarou would have understood, even if Seiya doesn't. Because you don't abandon family. And Shoutarou doesn't know why, when it's obviously not a virtue that's rewarded in kind, but it is—at least—the honest truth. 

 

* * *

 

"The truth?" Kenta sits alone at an empty hotel bar. "What does it matter now? What's done is done."

His hands folded around a glass of water, bangs falling into his eyes. They've never been friends, Shoutarou reflects. Not the way he was with Sho. Not even the way Kenta was with Sho, before everything. Even if Shoutarou always answers when Kenta calls, and still calls him _buchou_ —and that's just the thing, isn't it? To Kenta, Shoutarou will always be the kid who looked up to them and couldn't quite mask his delight that these _adults_ treated him as an equal and wanted him as a friend. 

At least, that's what he always thought. 

Kenta indulges him, and Kenta treats him the way you might treat a favorite baby cousin. Even if Kenta has, in the past few years, finally acknowledged that Shoutarou is now an adult in his own right—it's always with some faint wonder that the child he knew is now a man. 

It's tiring, chasing after someone's attention after all this time. 

Shoutarou rests his elbow on the bar. The height of the bar stools makes him feel like a kid, feet dangling off the floor. "I just want to know how you're holding up," Shoutarou needs to tell him. "I care about you, and it's about time you let me do that. I'm as much your friend as anyone else. I'm not just some kid you have to indulge because that's what you think Sho wants you to do."

And if Kenta were the sentimental type, he might look at Shoutarou then. If Kenta were the type to talk, they might talk about it now. If Kenta had answered the text that Shoutarou knew better than to send— _I heard what happened. Do you want to get a drink?_ —then maybe there would be some chance.

But none of that happened, and none of it will, because for all that they've known each other a decade and more, Kenta has never once asked Shoutarou for anything.

 

* * *

 

Maybe a couple months or years down the line, they'll run into each other on the street. 

Maybe it'll be spring—that would be appropriate, wouldn't it?—or maybe the rainy season will have long since come and gone. Maybe the last fading green of summer is staining the soles of his shoes, mud darkening his laces because Sho could never resist walking the edge of a grassy park when the crack of leather on metal is there to remind him that he, too, used to play ball. Shoutarou always meant to take him up on a years old offer to show him the proper way to catch. Somehow, they never got around to it. Summer and autumn only last so long. Maybe when they meet there'll be snow on the ground, scarves muffling white-fogged words and melting ice dripping from thin branches, quiet as a pin dropped in an empty room.

But since when has the city conveniently faded away just because someone needed to have a conversation with someone else?

No. It probably won't be that. More likely, a nameless rehearsal space, a stretch of corridor echoing with the sounds of the crew putting together a set, and Sho leaving an office where his meeting just wrapped and Shoutarou on his way to an interview with someone else. However it happens, they will see each other at some point. 

And maybe Sho still won't have forgiven him, and maybe Shoutarou isn't ready, either. But he'll nod and say, _Jinnai-san_ , and Sho will push up his glasses and offer a polite greeting in return. 

Maybe in the far future that politeness will be a relief, and not another stinging hurt. 

Or maybe Daisuke will show up, come to meet Sho to go home together. Or maybe he was already there. Strange, to think of Daisuke as someone who stays. Stranger still, that it's so much easier to imagine the way Daisuke might smile at him, hesitant but genuine, the way he tried to rebuild bridges before. 

_Hey, Shoutarou_ , he'll say. _It's been a while._

 

* * *

 

"Hasn't been that long, has it?" 

"Well, I see you on TV sometimes, so guess not. But how've you been? I think the last time we talked, it was…"

"That time in Akiba."

"That long ago?"

"I didn't think you'd want to talk to me after what I did. I assume Sho told you."

"He did." A pause. "But I also talked to Yutaka. And, I mean, I thought it would be better if we talked instead of hearing things from other people. Not talking leads to trouble, you know? I did try to get ahold of you—"

"I don't think Sho would have liked that."

"He doesn't run my life, and I don't run his. That's not how you keep someone you care about." And isn't it funny, because that's almost like what Sho said to him. "Anyway, there's some things that are just between us. Don't you think?"

Maybe. "Forgiveness isn't really something I spend a lot of time thinking about."

"Isn't that what you've been thinking about the whole night?"

And that's the annoying thing about having an imaginary conversation: the people in your head are always better informed than the ones out there in the real world. 

"I've been thinking about my friends," Shoutarou says instead. "I've been told I do that a lot. Maybe I spend more time on it than I should—I've also been told that I need to learn to keep my nose in my own business. But that's kind of hypocritical, isn't it? They tell me about their problems and lean on me for support, and then when I actually try to help, they shut me out."

Daisuke shakes his head. "Being there for your friends doesn't always mean fixing them."

"Yeah, well, apparently in the end none of us can save each other from ourselves."

"That's not it. Shoutarou, you can't fix everyone's problems for them. Even if you think you're right. And you are, a lot of the time—but being right isn't always the same thing as being a good friend, you know?"

"And what was I to you," Shoutarou asks, "when it was neither right nor good of me to try to sabotage your career? Have you forgiven me for that?"

Daisuke looks at him and says nothing—because Shoutarou doesn't know how anyone could possibly answer that question _yes_.

 

* * *

 

"Hey." 

Shihou slides into one of the empty seats next to him. The bar isn't too crowded this time of night on a Tuesday, but it's also far from empty. Shoutarou figures it's the black cloud over his own head keeping everyone away. 

Shihou bumps his shoulder. "You okay?"

His response is a shrug. Someone else might have pressed the issue; Shihou doesn't.

It's eleven-thirty and Shihou just showed up instead of answering any of the texts Shoutarou sent him, vague references to old friends and show biz and the way that life goes on. Reading them back, the words barely made any sense. What Shihou must have thought, Shoutarou doesn't even know. 

He used to think friends stayed friends forever, because he was sixteen and stupid; just because everybody else forgot that part doesn't make it any less true. 

He's twenty-five now. He hasn't got a single goddamn excuse.

Shihou orders two shots, and before Shoutarou can make fun of him for being a trashy party girl at heart, Shihou slides one over to him and says, 

"You'll be fine." 

—and whether that's in reference to his alcohol tolerance or cryptic texts, he doesn't know and doesn't ask. Shihou just holds up a shot glass, waiting. 

Shoutarou picks up his own. "Thanks."

The vodka burns all the way down. Shihou laughs at the look on his face, calls him a lightweight—which is hilarious, coming from _him_ —and what's Shoutarou supposed to do, really, but order another round and promise to get him back. 

"I mean, what are friends for," Shihou says, later, hiccuping slightly because he really is a lightweight. And Shoutarou doesn't know the answer to that, either. 

He might have claimed otherwise, at one point, because he had people who could have told him—that friends are like family, the way Yutaka dotes on all of them. Or that friends are people you can shit-talk other people with, the way Seiya does without thinking around him. Or else friends are people you can depend on, as Kenta has always believed. And Sho once told him, a friend—a real friend—is someone you can trust.

But maybe friends are just the people you come back to when you've got nowhere else to turn, the way Daisuke returned to them. Like gravity, or an inevitability.

For all that he dislikes the idea of change, Shoutarou has also never liked the idea of something he _can't_ change.

He asks Shihou, "What _are_ friends for, you suppose?"

Shihou gives him a funny look. "For whatever," he says. "If you need a drink or a talk, or a smack upside the head because you're being a jackass. I got you. You know?"

And that—well. It's not much, considering.

But maybe it's enough.

Shoutarou thinks he can learn to live with that.


End file.
